Wellness Calendar: Friday 12 September

Parasite values

Because praise, love and acceptance can be such a powerful intoxicant, the need for it can dominate our lives. It can alter our own desire for fulfilment, and this is where psychological problems can start to occur. For when getting the best for ourselves becomes dependent on how other people are evaluating us, we can easily become vulnerable and throw ourselves onto the mercy of the words and actions of the outside world. We can start to add other people’s values about us into our own world. These values are called introjected values (or parasite values).

With our own self no longer our own private property, but instead infiltrated with all sorts of messages from others as to what’s right and what’s wrong and what’s good and what’s bad, we suddenly find ourselves doing things or not doing things for the sake of others. And while we are unaware of what’s going on, we erroneously believe that our actions (or non-actions) are for our own sake.

What do you make of this idea? Can you apply it to your own life?

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